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<title>What is a Project? [Enterprise Architect User Guide]</title>

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                  <p class="p_Heading1"><span class="f_Heading1">What is a Project?</span></p>



  
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                <p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">An Enterprise Architect project is a mechanism for storing and managing the components of one or more UML models.</span></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">A project can be a <a href="createopenmodelfileoverview.htm">.EAP file</a> in an MS Access database or (in the Enterprise Architect </span><span class="f_BodyText">Corporate, Business and Software Engineering, System Engineering and Ultimate editions</span><span class="f_BodyText">) a structure of files in a <a href="createopenmodelfileoverview.htm">database management system</a> such as MySQL or Oracle.</span></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">A project can contain a single model, or a number of models, each of which defines a particular system or process. A model contains the diagrams, elements, relationships and associated metadata that define the structure and function of the system or process. These components are organized into a hierarchy of packages, which help to group and manage related components.</span></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">Different aspects of the process or system - or their development - are defined by Model Packages, which you <a href="model_wizard.htm">generate</a> from <a href="model_patterns.htm">templates</a> specifically structured to support the aspects that the Model Packages represent, such as requirements or deployment. You can generate these templated packages at any level of the hierarchy, but as they are created with their own content they are more useful at the top levels.</span></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">The top-level packages in a model can also be <a href="manageviews.htm">Views</a>, which represent partitions of the model that you define yourself. You can start with standard Views such as Class or Component, or create whatever partitions are appropriate to your model.</span></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">So a typical project could have a structure something like the following:</span></p>
<p class="p_TextIndentedL2"><img src="project%20structure.png" width="316" height="355" border="0" alt="Project Structure"></p>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">The project </span><span class="f_BodyText" style="font-style: italic;">Condor</span><span class="f_BodyText"> contains two models:</span></p>
<ul style="text-indent: 0px; margin-left: 30px; list-style-position: outside;">
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Development Model</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span class="f_Bulletlist1">and</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Requirements Model</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1">.</span></li>
</ul>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">Requirements Model contains:</span></p>
<ul style="text-indent: 0px; margin-left: 30px; list-style-position: outside;">
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Requirements View</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1"> and</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Use Case Model Package</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1">.</span></li>
</ul>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">Each View or Model Package contains packages. Use Case Model Package contains:</span></p>
<ul style="text-indent: 0px; margin-left: 30px; list-style-position: outside;">
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Actors</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1"> and</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Primary Use Cases</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1">.</span></li>
</ul>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">It also contains the diagram </span><span class="f_BodyText" style="font-style: italic;">Use Case Diagram</span><span class="f_BodyText">, which could be an overview of the package structure or function. Each package itself contains one or more diagrams, one or more packages, and several elements. The Primary Use Cases package contains the:</span></p>
<ul style="text-indent: 0px; margin-left: 30px; list-style-position: outside;">
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Primary UCDiagram</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Customer Setup</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1"> package</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Use Case 1</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1"> element</span></li>
<li><span class="f_Bulletlist1" style="font-style: italic;">Use Case 2</span><span class="f_Bulletlist1"> element.</span></li>
</ul>
<p class="p_BodyText"><span class="f_BodyText">Each subordinate package also contains diagrams, elements and (if necessary) further packages. The elements are related by connectors created in the diagrams, and each element and connector has properties, attributes, operations and extensions defined in the respective </span><span class="f_UIControl">Properties</span><span class="f_BodyText"> dialogs.</span></p>




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